


with nature's own hand painted

by MercutioLives



Series: Sonnet XX [1]
Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo et Juliette - Presgurvic, Rómeó és Júlia (Színház)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Changing Tenses, Childhood Memories, Consent Issues, Emotional Constipation, Growing Up, M/M, Memories, Past Sexual Abuse, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Trans Character, Transphobia, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 09:03:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2263806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercutioLives/pseuds/MercutioLives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"The first time Tybalt actually spoke to the Prince's second nephew, he no longer wore skirts, but a man's doublet and hose."</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	with nature's own hand painted

**Author's Note:**

> ~~THIS IS FINALLY DONE OMG.~~ I have been working on this fic since April. It was actually the second fic I ever wrote, but it's gone through several rehashes and edits, including one complete ending change. At last, it's something close to finished, and is also the longest fic I have ever written for this fandom (or possibly ever). It hasn't been beta-read, simply because I have no more patience and I want to share it with everyone.
> 
> This fic contains several headcanons that I really love to play with, all in one package: Tybalt and Mercutio being childhood friends / first crushes, Tybalt having an eidetic memory, and (probably my favourite) transgender Mercutio. Folks over Tumblr way know I've been trying to cobble together a fic with trans Mercutio for ages. Well, guys -- this is it. Hope you enjoy.

Although they are careful to whisper, Tybalt knows that people believe him to be as dull of wit as he is sharp of blade. He is not skilled in Latin or in sums, and perhaps he cannot make sense of a riddle, but his memory is as keen as any. He remembers the things he sees and hears with clarity, and none so much as those which interest him. Chief among these is the Prince's nephew, Mercutio, the second of three, whose fox-red hair and wild manner make him impossible to miss even without Tybalt's eyes actively watching.

He remembers when they were but children, before there were lines drawn in blood upon Verona's cobbled streets; he remembers being disinterested in the other nephews, for whom he had been a playmate. Valentine was too quiet; Paris cried too much. It was Mercutio – then in skirts and called a different name – to whom he was drawn. But he was too old at nine to play with girls. They would not let him into the nursery with Julia anymore, and he was not allowed to join in the game that his dear cousin and her friend were planning with their foreheads pressed close.

He remembers watching the way the sun made burnished copper of long, curly hair, these days sawed off with a knife and never left to grow, and wishing for a small and sinful moment that he was a Capulet daughter rather than a Capulet son.

\- - - -

The first time Tybalt actually spoke to the Prince's second nephew, he no longer wore skirts, but a man's doublet and hose. His red hair was a close, uneven crop (Tybalt's own black hair was longer, even), and his grin was toothy and insouciant, nothing like the demure pout of a woman. It suited him better, Tybalt thought, as did the name that glided smoothly from his tongue. Mercutio. It was right he bore the name of an ancient god: anything more common would have sat ill upon him. He remembers confessing confusion, for how was it that the Prince's niece was permitted to jaunt about town in a man's weeds?

"Have you not heard? The Prince's niece is in her grave, and another nephew sprouted up from the fresh-turned soil. Ask no more after her, I pray you. It is in poor form to speak of the dead." He spoke lightly, with laughter, but there was something beneath it that Tybalt knew well. He heard the disgust one could only bear for oneself, and felt in it a fraternity he was not sure he wanted. Nevertheless, he said no more of the striking little girl who had played in the garden with Julia, though questions in plenty battered behind his teeth. If anything, he knew well when to keep silent. Mercutio smiled knowingly, bid him good day, and that was all.

After that meeting, it was as if his ears became attuned to anything said about the Prince's kinsman. He did not heed gossip, for that was for women and spineless men, but he could not ignore the furtively murmured words they used to speak of Mercutio: sinful, immodest, possibly devil-touched or mad. Always in these whispers they referred to him as a woman, though Tybalt in passing had once heard the Prince himself call him nephew. Never had he known such a creature, a woman who fancied herself a man. Or perhaps a man caged in the body of a woman. Tybalt was not sure which was true. Either way, he could not blame Mercutio for seeking masculinity. A woman, regardless of her station, was nothing but a tool for the use of men, to be discarded or ignored when her usefulness ran dry. He saw it with the whores when he accompanied his father to the brothels, with the maids who did not even warrant a word that was not an order, even with his aunt who barely rated her husband's attention since she had not provided him a son. Though they had spoken but once, he could not see Mercutio submitting to such a fate.

In the weeks that followed, Mercutio began to seek him out. Mostly they would talk (Mercutio would talk, really, and Tybalt would listen), but sometimes they would practice their fencing (Tybalt was surprised to find a match in Mercutio, where none of his own kin could stand to him) or sneak into the Prince's cellar to steal wine (Mercutio's palate was far more refined than Tybalt's, who could not tell Soave from Prosecco, and for which Mercutio laughed at him). The more time they spent together, the less Tybalt thought of Mercutio as a woman in men's clothing: there was nothing delicate or feminine about him, except perhaps the soft curve of his jaw or the graceful manner in which his hands fluttered about as he spoke on matters distinctly unwomanly. Even so, he'd seen such delicacy in men born their proper sex as well, so perhaps they were not so telling in the end.

To know it would have no doubt comforted Mercutio – as much as he tried to hide it, Tybalt saw the way his mouth tightened whenever someone called him _she_ in his hearing – but it only worried Tybalt. He should not have noticed these things, nor thought on them with something that might have been tenderness, if such emotions had not been burned from his Capulet blood. If Mercutio was to be a man, then he was not to be desired. Tybalt was not to think of tumbling him in the shade of the Capulet orchard or the shadow of a corridor in the Prince's house, nor was he to wonder how those lips would taste, stained red with a wine he could not name.

\- - - -

Tybalt remembers these thoughts, though he doesn't wish to remember them. Even now, years after they began to emerge, he wishes he could banish the stain of them from his mind, but the summers and winters that followed their initial meeting are as scorching hot and freezing cold in his memory as they when he lived them. Most memorable of all was Mercutio's sixteenth birthday, on the fifteenth of May: a month and a day after Tybalt himself turned sixteen. For that handful of weeks in between, he felt the childish pride of being older than Mercutio, as if it made a difference in their friendship. (The word sat oddly in his thoughts: Capulets had no need of friends, his father said. But what were they, if not that? He put the question away for another time.)

Usually, Mercutio came to him, his words preceding him as though they were already in the middle of a conversation. No matter how thick the crowd, it seemed the Prince's nephew could always locate him, or vice-versa – but not so today, in the midst of the ball thrown in his honour. Tybalt told himself that he was not looking, though the way his eyes searched for a glimpse of red hair and fluttering hands begged to differ. Regardless, he found nothing. Why would Mercutio, whom Tybalt knew to love parties of any sort, be absent from his own? In a manner he hoped was surreptitious enough, Tybalt slipped through the crowd and up the stairs, the corridors here all empty. He had been to Mercutio's rooms on one prior occasion, and remembered the way without fail.

What he found there was not what he expected, nor what he wanted to see: Mercutio on the floor of his bedchamber in a woman's underthings, a gown lying some feet away in a crumpled heap. His face was contorted in something like rage or desolation, though Tybalt was not skilled enough with emotion to tell which; all he knew was that he'd never seen Mercutio with such a look before. It made his insides twist uncomfortably. As quietly as he could, he began to back out of the room, but it was too late: Mercutio looked up and saw him standing awkwardly by; his eyes were red and wet, as were his cheeks. Tybalt swallowed against a sudden dryness in his throat. There was a long, agonizing silence.

"I am to be married off." Mercutio's voice was an ugly croak, thick from weeping. The words were spat, inelegant as Mercutio never was, and Tybalt nearly recoiled. "To some duke thrice my age, doubtless with a prick no longer than mine own, and even shorter wit! Do I seem such a maid?" The way those eyes, so blue and pleading, bore into Tybalt made him want to run. This was not the Mercutio he knew; that fearless, graceful creature was not in this room. He could not speak, the words stuck in his throat, but forced himself to act. He stepped forward once, then again, edging around the discarded gown to Mercutio's wardrobe; without thinking much of colour or cut he selected a doublet (red, perhaps unconsciously remembering how Mercutio favoured it), along with hose and underlinens. These, he dropped into Mercutio's lap.

The silence which reigned between them then carried with it an unnameable quality. Clothing clutched in his hands, Mercutio stood with some measure of his usual fluidity. The grin was still not quite right, but it was better than the horrible expression from seconds ago. Without any sense of modesty, he stripped out of the smock – which, Tybalt noted now that he was upright, was torn as if Mercutio had engaged in struggle with it. Tybalt had seen a naked female body, many times over. Every time his father dragged him to one of Verona's brothels, he was made to see it. In shape and composition, there was nothing different about Mercutio from any of the women of the pleasure houses, but there was something in the way he carried himself even now that caused Tybalt to flinch from the comparison.

"That I would be bartered away, like a horse at auction! Well, then! If I'm to be a horse, I will be no prize beast. I shall lame myself such that none shall wish to mount me." There was a slightly manic set to the smile now, as Mercutio turned to face Tybalt fully, yet unclothed. He appeared unashamed to be seen by Tybalt thus, and perhaps there was in his eyes a gleam of the madness that was the topic of so much gossip. "You've a handy blade, have you not? Pray, Tybalt, my dearest friend, prick in me a wound suitable to ruin me."

Mercutio was not the only one in Verona subject to rumours: tongues wagged about Tybalt as well. His anger, his fits, his sexual appetites – but such things were rarely the topic of conversation between the two of them. Tybalt stood as stone once again, his tongue too heavy in his mouth for words.

"I have seen it, I have, how you look upon me. Do you deny it?" Mercutio crept closer still, grin turned sly, eyes still bloodshot but dancing with mischief and…something else. Something vile. It was the same look, Tybalt realized, worn by countless harlots as they unlaced his hose, breathing "yes-my-lord"s and touching him in ways that made him despise himself too deeply for words. Nausea rose in his gut, and his hands were shoving at Mercutio before he could think to check his fury.

"No!" he roared, backing away until he hit the wall, wishing he could melt into it and disappear. He clutched at his temples, tugged at his hair: it was a rejection, but also an answer. He wanted. He desired. But he could not – not when Mercutio looked at him with those eyes. His own were squeezed shut, breath coming short, heart hammering against his ribs like a maddened bird. Then, there were hands upon him, cool and gentle and soothing. With a soft groan, he leaned into the touches; he allowed his hands to be pried away and his hair to be stroked back. When he finally glanced up, the terrible look in Mercutio's eyes was gone, replaced by something equally distasteful. Pity. Mercutio pitied him, as one might a wounded beast. He was no longer naked: his shirt now covered him enough that he looked more like himself. It was open at the neck, and Tybalt could see beneath it the strips of linen that bound down his breasts.

"Do forgive me. I had not thought –" Tybalt shook him off, though he was mindful this time not to shove. Mercutio backed off without protest and turned to finish dressing. Once he was safely clothed, the red doublet dark as heart's blood and making his red hair seem the brighter, Tybalt could look at him again without feeling ill and guilty. Yet when Mercutio reached for him, to place a hand upon his arm as he sometimes did, he drew back. He could not stomach such casual friendliness so suddenly. Perhaps the movement was too hasty, the self-loathing in his face mistaken for disgust, for Mercutio's expression tightened and the smile he turned upon Tybalt was dagger-sharp and unkind: the sort Tybalt had seen aimed at others, that meant hurt and hatred and betrayal. He had never before been its recipient, and found himself powerless beneath it. If there was one thing which he loathed above all else, it was powerlessness. Tybalt knew that he would be unable to explain himself, so he did the only thing he felt he could: he turned and ran.

(Tybalt has allowed the memory of the time between that meeting and the next to slip through the cracks, for he knows that keeping it would lead him only to madness. He knows that, should he allow himself to think on it, he will remember it too vividly.)

The next time they met face-to-face, apart from the necessary social functions at which they needed never speak, Mercutio was leaning heavily on the arm of a Montague boy at least a year their junior. They laughed like old friends, the way Tybalt never could. Red-faced and clearly drunk, Tybalt thought they did not see him watching them, not until Mercutio called across the piazza. He thought there was a hint of – something – in the way Mercutio looked him up and down, straightening languidly and smirking like the whole world was his. The acrid taste of betrayal, so much like bile, filled Tybalt's mouth. Was this to be his punishment, then, for his weakness? The Montague boy looked startled, a hapless pup caught in a fight between alleycats. He murmured to Mercutio and grabbed his arm, tugging almost desperately. Although it clearly rankled him to do so, Mercutio heeded his new companion and stepped away without further words, severing as he did any bond of friendship between himself and Tybalt. Betrayal with betrayal repaid.

\- - - -

Tybalt remembers all of this and more, though he never permits himself to dwell upon any of it. At least, not sober. As deep in his cups as he is now, on a wine whose taste reminds him vaguely of a bygone summer even now in the midst of autumn, all of the memories rush up to meet him. Regret is a waste of time and energy, his father used to say. A Capulet has one purpose and one only: to rid Verona of Montagues. If Tybalt were more devoted to his duty, he knows he would not be sitting here drunk and steeped in the regret of opportunities wasted. In the years that had passed, there had not been a kind word between himself and Mercutio, who was now a Montague in all but name. By rights, Tybalt should hate him more than he does. He pretends to, and sometimes nearly believes it – but an errant memory of a mouth stained red with wine, or eyes wet with tears, or an affectionate hand upon his shoulder shatters the façade.

"Ay, me."

A sigh, mocking and over-dramatic, draws Tybalt up from the mire of his thoughts. He is wholly unsurprised to see Mercutio folding himself upon the stool beside him, his grin all teeth and no mirth. He feels his fingernails bite into the heel of his hand, though he doesn't recall consciously clenching his fist. When his fingers uncurl, he sees he's broken the skin. Once upon a time, Mercutio would have taken that hand in both of his and scolded him for his foolishness. Now, he simply orders a drink.

"Wherefore dost thou brood, O Prince of Cats? It is not yet struck noon on this most lovely of days, yet here you are in a musty tavern – and not even a place with pretty whores. Unless you've already done your work upon them and they yet recover from the toil." With that, Tybalt is on his feet, and Mercutio is not slow to follow. Both of them grew tall over the years: for Tybalt, it is not surprising for his father was a mountain of a man; more so for Mercutio, to whom height is the only blessing his body seemed willing to give. Before he knows what he's doing, Tybalt's fist is knotted in Mercutio's doublet and their faces are drawn almost obscenely close. He can smell the faint remains of the fennel seeds Mercutio likes to chew after he's eaten; he nearly can't see the grin that curls across those lips, as tempting as they are hateful.

"And what of you? Bored of your Montague pup?" A lazy, arrogant chuckle makes Tybalt cringe.

"Perhaps I thought instead to spend my afternoon with a Capulet kitten? It is my prerogative, after all, as I am neither Montague nor Capulet. Your feud has never been mine." He still has a fistful of Mercutio's doublet, and it takes nearly all of his restraint not to shake him until his teeth rattle. (He doesn't doubt that Mercutio would only laugh the harder for it, in any case.) Tybalt starts at the delicate touch of chill fingers to his wrist – Mercutio's hands have always been cold – and releases him with a huff, glowering at his smirking mouth. He hates that he still wants to kiss it, even after all this time and all that's come between them.

At least before, he was guilty only of the sin of lusting after another man – and even then, the truth of it is dubious for try as he may, Mercutio's body is still that of a woman. But now he can feel the weight of his father's memory bearing down upon him as well. Mercutio is not a Montague by blood, but he's as good as, and in Capulet eyes it amounts to much the same thing: in Capulet eyes, that is a worse sin than would-be sodomy. There must be something telling in his face, for Mercutio's changes, his grin adopting a darker shade. In his eyes is a look that sends Tybalt back to their sixteenth summer; a feeling like pinpricks breaks out all across his skin. Frozen and silent again, he does not resist when those upward-curling lips press to his. There are enough people in the tavern that no one particularly notices, and the kiss is only brief, barely a kiss at all. It could have been between kinsmen, a greeting or farewell, but it isn't: a fact which is well-known by the only two to whom it matters.

"Mind yourself, Mercutio," Tybalt says lowly, hoping to warn him off and succeeding only in winning lazy laughter. There's another kiss, this time on the cheek. As Mercutio draws away, Tybalt sees the sly tilt to his mouth, and is nearly too focused on it to see him place money down upon the table, far more than the worth of the drinks Tybalt had imbibed. There is nothing further between them, and Mercutio slips from the establishment and into the bright sunlight.

Tybalt cannot but follow. If anything else, he can blame it on the drink, despite having been thoroughly sobered by Mercutio's presence. He walks several feet behind, his hand resting on the sword at his hip. The lie that he will use it when he arrives at whatever place Mercutio is leading him is barely a comfort. He's cautious to keep his distance, yet also to never lose sight of that blaze of red hair as Mercutio strolls without care down the streets of Verona. Once, and only once, the Prince's nephew casts a glance back over his shoulder: that bright, cheeky grin only serves to inflame Tybalt's rage and he nearly draws his blade right then – but he knows that would do nothing but please the ever-contrary Mercutio. Regardless of whether or not he would win a duel between them, Tybalt is aware that by following his erstwhile friend out of the tavern, he has already lost. How ashamed Father would be, that his only son was reduced to this, trapped by the clever wiles of a Montague hanger-on. Despite the bitter shame that rises at the back of his throat like bile, he can't help but remember that Mercutio was _his_ first, before he had any ties to Montague.

He remembers again that last, bittersweet summer afternoon: Mercutio on the floor, in a girl's smock, puffy-eyed from weeping and declaring that he would belong to no man. Yet he would have given himself to Tybalt that afternoon, if only to sabotage his uncle's will that he marry and return to his cast-off womanhood. That burning look in his eyes, and the answering revulsion that Tybalt had felt at the thought of bedding his only friend like the common whores his father had forced upon him to make him a man. No matter how he forces them away, the memories are always there, waiting to be acknowledged. Against his will, he wonders if Mercutio remembers them with the same terrible clarity, though he knows he is too proud to ever ask. (Somewhere deep inside, he fears he already knows the answer.)

Lost once more in his own thoughts, Tybalt's hand drops from the hilt of his sword, and he realizes with an embarrassing start that he has stopped walking. Mercutio is watching him curiously, an expression of amusement and fascination upon his features. Tybalt lifts his chin, indignant at being observed like a beast in a menagerie, his nostrils flared and his lips pursed into a thin, hard line. It takes him a second to notice where they are, though he's quietly ashamed that they had walked so far without his having taken note of his surroundings. The trees of the Prince's orchard stand tall around them, dwarfing even Tybalt's great height. There's no one around, and save for the cheery tweeting of the birds and the rustle of foliage in the breeze, all is silent. Mercutio plucks an apple from the closest branch and tosses it. When Tybalt catches it in midair without a thought or glance, his mouth breaks into a wide grin and he picks a second apple for himself. Tybalt watches the bright red fruit turn over and over in that slender, white hand. A hand that would casually and affectionately rest upon his shoulder, once upon a time, yet just as easily grip the hilt of a rapier.

"My, my. We are quite lost in thought today, aren't we, my dear Tybalt?" As it has so often in the past, Mercutio's laughing voice breaks through the surface of his thoughts. Yet that lazy laughter doesn't quite match the look Mercutio wears, one that is almost pensive, almost serious but for the telltale glitter in his eye. The apple has stopped turning in his hand; the one Mercutio had tossed him still rests in his own. The urge to throw it – away, or maybe at Mercutio – battles the urge to bite into it, out of spite, to prove that his being here doesn't bother him. He does neither, simply allowing the fruit to fall from limp fingers and to the ground at his feet. Mercutio does likewise. His eyes no longer gleam with mischief, and his pale brow is furrowed in what may be thought or frustration. Tybalt has less than a moment to puzzle it out before Mercutio's mouth is on his for the second time that afternoon. There's nothing chaste or brief about this kiss: even Tybalt, who is worse than useless at deciphering human emotion, can feel the pent-up longing and vexation in it, traveling between their mouths on hot puffs of breath. For all that he stiffens and readies himself to push Mercutio away again, his lips part in traitorous welcome.

Mercutio's hands come to rest upon his shoulders, then snake around his neck, one buried in the dark silk of Tybalt's hair, the other brushing his nape. Mercutio's lips are soft as a woman's, Tybalt notes, but he's as aggressive as any man with the way he presses closer, closer – as if their bodies could meld. Tybalt finds himself pressed backward until his spine is pressed flush with the trunk of a tree. His hands flutter about, unsure whether to rest upon Mercutio's shoulders or his hips, or to simply hang there uselessly. In the end, he doesn't have to decide, for Mercutio steps away, his mouth reddened and breath coming short. For once, he says nothing, and he has the good grace to look faintly ashamed of himself. In that moment, he looks sixteen again; Tybalt could swear that they have gone back in time, to the idyll of those days before their friendship was shattered. But he knows better. He knows that nothing can change what the years have wrought. What is one kiss next to so much resentment and regret? Tybalt startles himself by being the first to speak.

"This doesn't change anything," he says in a voice that sounds half-strangled and hesitant, like he doesn't quite believe it, and the words are bitter on his tongue – bitter as the smile that curls over Mercutio's lips: the perfect mirror of the one that tore their friendship to shreds, though this time, he is unable to mask the pain in his eyes. Tybalt sees it, and the old wound is opened afresh. For an awful flash of time, he thinks that Mercutio might weep. He doesn't, but nor does he laugh.

"Of course not. Only a fool would think himself capable of softening that icy stone that serves as your heart, after all. Good day to you; I trust you can find your own way out." The words are so sharp that Tybalt physically flinches, as if he'd been cut by a blade instead. It would have been preferable: he knows how to care for wounds of the flesh, at least. Finally, he knows what to do with his hands, and before he can think better of it, the familiar weight of his sword rests in his left. Mercutio turns at the sound of the unsheathing blade, pure befuddlement eclipsing hurt and anger.

"Shall we settle this like men?"

Tybalt remembers Mercutio's skill with a blade. He can recall at will the countless, playful bouts they staged as boys – with slight, graceful Mercutio more than holding his own against Tybalt's brutal prowess. He held himself as he had then: with a challenge, but empty of the intention to kill that Father had beaten into him. Only with Mercutio as his opponent was he ever free of that murderous intent his father would say was essential to a true Capulet warrior. Perhaps Mercutio can see this, for he, too, sinks back into the old, familiar motions as he draws his own blade. However, it's quickly apparent that Mercutio is fighting in earnest as Tybalt allows him the first blow: there is nothing playful in the way he moves, fluid and beautiful though it may be. Soon enough, the ring of steel on steel echoes through the orchard, breaking the quietude of the afternoon, and the two of them are pushed to the very limits of their skill. Every time one of them gains an advantage, the other recovers and they are matched again. In spite of the brisk autumn chill, sweat beads on their foreheads and their breathing, though carefully measured, grows ragged with effort.

It is through the sheer power of his anger, Tybalt thinks, that Mercutio overmasters him at last. The tip of his rapier comes to rest at Tybalt's Adam's apple, and Tybalt lets his own sword drop from his hand in surrender. In their childhood games, Mercutio would have lowered his blade immediately with a grin and a cheeky remark, but now he does not. It quivers slightly in his hand, and beyond it, Mercutio's eyes blaze with raw passion. Tybalt doesn't dishonour him by shutting his eyes: if Mercutio wishes to dispatch him here, he will offer up no resistance. Seemingly mollified by this, Mercutio finally brings his sword to rest, but with lightning-quick reflexes sends his opposite fist hurtling toward Tybalt's face. Unprepared to defend against such a blow, Tybalt is sent sprawling. His vision goes white, and when it clears, Mercutio is standing over him, knuckles split. At any other time, with any other person, such a cheap and dirty shot would have caused Tybalt's ever-present rage to flare – but he knows that this time, it's deserved. He says nothing, waiting for Mercutio to speak, to hit him again, to do something other than stand there and glare down at him. He bears the indignity of waiting, though it chafes his pride and everything he's ever learned rails against what his father would have seen as cowardice.

"Do you think this fixes things?" Mercutio's words are peculiar in their lack of embellishment, and his voice sounds strained to Tybalt's ears. "Do you truly believe that this will erase the fact of your betrayal?"

"Betrayal?" Tybalt echoes hollowly, indignation heating his cheeks in spite of his efforts to remain unoffended. "I'm not the one hanging off the arm of a Montague whelp!"

"What choice did I have? You ran away, deserted me when I needed you – and Romeo did not deny me." It's impossible to mistake his meaning, even given Tybalt's general ineptitude with words, and it must show on his face for Mercutio's lips twist in a smirk of grim satisfaction. The thought of Mercutio giving himself to that Montague brat is absolutely unbearable, so much so that it blots out anything else he might have thought or felt. He's on his feet again, fists in Mercutio's doublet, and dragging him forward. Their mouths crush together in a jarring scrape of teeth, and Tybalt realizes belatedly that his lip was split when Mercutio punched him. It hurts, but the pain is nothing compared to the sudden, sharp ache of knowing that other hands have touched what he never dared. This kiss is little different from a duel, all teeth and bravado, and when it ends, there's no telling who is the victor.

"He can't have you," pants Tybalt at last, hoarsely and without considering his words. His fingers remain knotted in Mercutio's doublet, and he's shaking. The look on Mercutio's face is indecipherable.

"Can't he? Tsk, the Prince of Cats is so greedy. He throws me away, yet expects to keep me all to himself." The mixture of scorn, amusement, and smug superiority would have been intolerable, had there not also been a glimmer of hopeful relief present in the flicker of a smile that is gone almost as soon as it's born. Tybalt doesn't know what to do with it, but it's already impressed itself on his near-perfect memory.

"I didn't –" Tybalt's throat goes dry, cutting off his protest before he can finish saying something that, in all likelihood, would have only served to make things worse in the end. Instead, he stands there in impotent silence as Mercutio considers his options. He can see that clever mind working through those bright blue eyes, deciding his fate as surely as any judge, and when a smile spreads over those soft lips, it sends Tybalt's heart pounding with anxiety as he awaits the verdict.

"Hear me, my greedy Tybalt, and mark me well. I belong to none but Mercutio. Do not think for a moment that you can lay claim to me as if I were some prize to be won in the name of your damned feud. If anything, the right to choose is mine: did I not best you just now, after all?" The jest is obvious, and Tybalt wishes it were easier for him to smile; instead, he bows his head in awkward, unaccustomed contrition. His voice is still beyond him, but the softness of Mercutio's smile when he lifts Tybalt's chin tells him that his wordless apology – however imperfect – is at least understood. Mercutio's cold, slender hand finds Tybalt's and twines their fingers together fiercely in silent confirmation of his choice.

\- - - -

Unaware precisely what time of night it is, Tybalt lay awake in the darkness. Beside him, Mercutio is sound asleep, his even breathing the only noise cutting through the silence. The shape of his body is visible even in the gloom: his unbound breasts, the gentle curve of his hips, the long, slim arm thrown across Tybalt's chest. Focusing his eyes, he can even make out the peaceful blankness of his sleeping face, free of smirk or grin: it's alien, but not uncomfortable to look at. A soft, incomprehensible murmur escapes Mercutio's slightly-parted lips and he turns onto his side, now facing Tybalt; in his sleep, he draws closer and burrows his face into the curve of Tybalt's neck. Such intimate contact sends a brief thrill of panic through him, but he forces it down: there's no danger to be found in the press of a sleeping lover. That word – lover – sits oddly in his mind. Mercutio's promise that he would get used to it in time seems impossible, but less so in the dark with Mercutio curled into his side.

Eventually, Tybalt allows the steady rhythm of Mercutio's breathing to lull him down into sleep, and he dreams of summer.

 

 


End file.
